Sam Harris

﻿Sam Harris is the author of five New York Times bestsellers. His books include The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, The Moral Landscape, Free Will, Lying, Waking Up, and Islam and the Future of Tolerance (with Maajid Nawaz). The End of Faith won the 2005 PEN Award for Nonfiction. His writing and public lectures cover a wide range of topics—neuroscience, moral philosophy, religion, spirituality, violence, human reasoning—but generally focus on how a growing understanding of ourselves and the world is changing our sense of how we should live. ​

This page provides a sampler of Sam Harris's work. Note that Sam provides commentary on a wide variety of social and political issues. Only those videos relating to the culture of Islam are included below. For much more information, see links below.

Site Author: Sam's video (right) on Identity Politics represents my own thinking on the matter. I detest the unenlightened doctrine of Islam for the same reason I dislike 'Identity Politics'. Its proponents share the same weakness, which is a fear of independent thinking, a fear of social exclusion and desire to be 'taken care of' by authority figures. 'Herd Mentality' or 'Group Think' is attractive to those who wish to remain as children, psychologically-speaking. Totalitarian movements demand of their adherents complete subservience to an 'approved' doctrine - whether religious or secular in nature.​What is the difference between Islam and a cult?

At the very least, Identity Politics restrict original thought. It is easy to understand why followers of the Islamic faith are reluctant to express opinions running counter to their religion - apostasy from Islam is punishable by death, after all. But there are more subtle terrors lurking in wait for individuals living in western cultures. While social media software is an immensely powerful tool for good it can also provide an effective mechanism for demonizing and shaming those individuals who might otherwise express opinions running counter to the mainstream. Islam maintains its power through threatening physical death for apostates: group think has its own punishments for 'apostasy', by threatening the 'psychological' death' of the individual through shaming and social exclusion. The instinctive fear of rejection by the herd can be a powerful force which results in insane paradoxes such as gays supporting Hamas and Feminists espousing Sharia. ​For my part, I'll buy a day ticket if I feel my view aligns with the group on a specific issue, but please don't ask me to purchase full membership.

Liberals failure to talk honestly about Islam is responsible for the rise of Trump